A Night of Song & Speech: Honouring William Davis
SYDNEY, N.S. – On Wednesday, June 11, Eltuek Arts Centre will host a powerful evening of remembrance and reflection marking the 100th anniversary of Davis Day and the creation of Lawren Harris’ iconic Miners’ Houses, Glace Bay.
The event, held at Café Marie from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, invites the community to gather in honour of coal miner William Davis, whose death marked a movement — and whose memory continues to resonate each year on Davis Day as a tribute to coal miners and their families, the struggles they endured in the mines and in the fight for workers’ rights, and all those who lost their lives while contributing to the coal mining industry in Cape Breton.
Davis, working as a roadmaker at No. 12 Colliery in New Waterford, was 35 years old and a father of nine children when he was shot and killed by company police at Waterford Lake during the coal strike of 1925.
That same year, Lawren Harris, a founding member of the Group of Seven and a pivotal figure in Canadian art history, immortalized Glace Bay’s mining heritage and this pivotal moment in the labour movement with his painting Miners’ Houses, Glace Bay. The artwork captures the stark, resilient life of the mining community, reflecting both hardship and hope. This painting is currently on display in Gallery 203 at the Eltuek Arts Centre until July 3 (extended from the original date of June 28).
Miners’ Houses, Glace Bay will be available to view throughout the event, alongside a billy bat wielded by company police against striking miners and found in the woods at Waterford Lake on the night Davis was killed (on loan from the New Waterford Historical Society).
The evening will open with a solemn lament from a piper, honoring those lives lost in the mines. The spirit of labour leader J.B. McLachlan will carry us forward through performances and readings by artists Alicia Penney, Cassie Josephine, and Richie Wilcox, beginning at 6:30 pm. Drinks will be available at Café Marie and small bites will be served.
This free event is open to all and serves as both remembrance and reflection on community resilience and our labour history, the continuing relevance of workers’ rights and resistance against injustice, and — one hundred years later — hope.
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Event Details:
When: Wednesday, June 11, 6:00 – 8:00 pm (Performances at 6:30 pm)
Where: Café Marie, Eltuek Arts Centre, 170 George St., Sydney
Admission: Free and open to the public
For more information, please contact:
Ardelle Reynolds
Manager, Community Engagement
New Dawn Enterprises
(902)304-0170
areynolds@newdawn.ca
About Eltuek Arts Centre
Eltuek (êl·du·ehg) is a Mi’kmaw word that means “We are making (it) together.” The (it) refers to whatever it is (we) decide to make – a meal, a conversation, a painting, or a poem. Art, community, social change. We do it together.
The name, Eltuek, was shared by the Eltuek Elder Advisors, with the intent that Eltuek Arts Centre is accessible, inclusive, and continuous.
Eltuek Arts Centre is an artist-led creative arts hub in North End Sydney that features private artist studios, an Open Studio for shared artist workspaces, gallery and exhibition space, Café Marie and Meals on Wheels, arts and community organizations, and creative gathering and event spaces for the community.
Eltuek Arts Centre is a non-profit arts organization that is owned and operated by New Dawn Enterprises. New Dawn is a private, not-for-profit, volunteer-directed social enterprise dedicated to community building. We are the oldest Community Development Corporation in Canada and a founding member of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. Our Mission, to engage the community to create a culture of self-reliance, is as relevant today as it was when the organization was founded back in 1976.
Eltuek Arts Centre opened in February 2020 in the former Holy Angels Convent, ca. 1885. New Dawn Enterprises purchased it in 2013, and the 130-year-old heritage building is the largest adaptive reuse of built heritage in Unama’ki, Cape Breton Island. The building stands as a symbol of hope and renewal for a community that has struggled for more than 40 years to reinvent itself after the decline of the coal and steel industries